Genetic Approach to the Development of Cover Crops for Weed Management

Abstract Economic and environmental issues are driving efforts to improve cover crops for weed management. Cover crop residues on the soil surface interfere with weeds by releasing allelochemicals and by physical suppression. Optimizing allelopathic potential, biomass production, and other desirable cover crop characteristics using classical and molecular genetic approaches holds great promise for improving the efficacy and selectivity of cover crops. Likewise, investigating allelopathy at the genetic and molecular level should aid in understanding the biochemical basis for allelopathy in plants.